If the police can’t find Madeleine, we’ll do it ourselves, vow Kate and Gerry McCann

By VANESSA ALLEN – Last updated at 11:24am on 2nd May 2008

Kate and Gerry McCann have said that if the police fail to find their missing daughter Madeleine they will carry on the search alone.

Mr McCann said: ‘People have had a fair crack. As parents we just want to make sure everything possible has been done.’

His wife added: ‘You get to the point where you think we will have to find out for ourselves.’

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Ordeal: The McCanns yesterday describing their ‘year of torture’ since Madeleine vanished

They told the Mirror that they had been kept in the dark about thousands of leads which have been received by police.

Mr McCann said: ‘We’ve got little bits of the jigsaw and huge gaps. We are saying, “You may have told the Portuguese police, but tell us”. We need to know and we want to know. We will follow up every lead.

‘Thousands of leads came in through Crimestoppers and Leicestershire police. We have not had access to that information and we want it.’

He added: ‘We aren’t taking the law into our own hands… our investigation is independent.’

In another interview Mrs McCann, a GP who has not yet returned to work, snorted with derision as she was asked if police had done enough to find her daughter, before her husband answered more diplomatically.

The couple have launched what they described as a ‘last chance’ effort to find their daughter.

Speaking on the eve of the first anniversary of her disappearance, they spoke of the ‘torture upon torture’ piled upon them during the last 12 months.

They also acknowledged they could not keep up the intensity of their search and that the interest in their plight was bound to wane.

“It’s inevitable that the spotlight and the intensity cannot stay the way it’s been, and we don’t expect it,” said Mr McCann, 39. “This is a last chance in terms of international reach.”

But they faced disappointment last night when it emerged that their high-profile campaign for a Europe-wide alert system for missing children had not won the support of British police.

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Our torture: Kate McCann says the last year has been horrific but ‘we have to carry on’

The most senior officer responsible for tracing missing children in England and Wales, Deputy Assistant Commissioner Richard Bryan, said there was already an adequate alert system in place.

In a round of nine back-to-back media interviews, Mr McCann and his 40-year-old wife spoke about the toll their high-profile campaign has taken on their family.

They hit back at claims they had courted celebrity status and ducked questions about whether they feared they could still face charges for child negligence.

The frustrations of the year began to show as they were asked repeatedly why they had left their children alone while they had dinner with friends on their holiday in Portugal.

Mrs McCann said: “I feel we have been persecuted enough about this matter, and we have done it to ourselves and we don’t need to keep going over it.”

One year on: Madeleine McCann, four, is still missing

The couple have faced recurring criticism over their decision to leave Madeleine, then three, and their two-year-old twins alone in the unlocked holiday apartment in Praia da Luz, and have repeatedly told of their regret and guilt.

Mrs McCann said: “Everybody parents in a different way. There’s no right or wrong, it’s just different. We’re not perfect. We’re normal parents, normal people. And most people are flawed.”

Her husband added: “We have expressed our deep regret but we cannot change it. We have to live with that on a daily basis – we don’t need reminding of it.”

The couple, who both remain official police suspects, admitted there were days when their guilt, regrets and fears over Madeleine overwhelmed them.

“But we have to carry on,” said Mr McCann. “We are not characters in a soap opera. This is about a real child and a real family who have been traumatised by this.”

His wife said she had moved on from the darkest days of the immediate aftermath of Madeleine’s disappearance.

She said: “It’s obviously a bit different now to how it was right at the beginning, when you’re hardly functioning. It’s impossible not to enjoy Sean and Amelie.”

Onlookers said Mrs McCann, wearing a cream vest top, matching cardigan and light make-up, was poised and assured during the round of interviews.

Her and her husband, who have faced claims that cracks have formed in their relationship, insisted they remained strong.

But the pain and hurt they feel at their treatment by the Portuguese police and some sections of the media was never far from the surface.

The McCanns announced a new hotline number – 0845 8384699 – and urged the public to use it if they had leads about Madeleine.